Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

Hi everyone. this month's theme is Time Travel. the book chosen is science fiction grand master Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer.

The novel was originally serialized within the pages of The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy and published as a novel in 1957.

according to Wikipedia: "In three separate Locus Magazine readers polls from 1975 to 1998, it was judged the 36th, the 29th, or the 43rd all-time best science-fiction novel."

did not realize it was so highly regarded. enjoy!

This book totally reignited my love of Heinlein when I reread it last year. As I said in my review, "I pretty much stopped reading Heinlein after Time Enough for Love. He got increasingly misogynistic and right-wing…. But I'd forgotten the immense vision he brought to his earlier stories." Sure, it's dated, but not nearly as dated as I expected.

The Door to Summer highlights Heinleins storytelling genius because it works as a story even though we are living in the future he depicts fictionally and erroneously. And, the reason I believe resides in his protagonist, who embodies so many American mythic male virtues, primarily Yankee ingenuity, but also loyalty to his friends and his cat, and finally his ability to pick himself up after he is betrayed and try to make the best out of it without a lot of bitterness. And, it is these characteristics that allow him to win in the end.

"...loyalty to his friends and his cat"

Which reminds me of something. I get a kick out of reading the icons on the back windows of minivans. You know the ones: Stick Dad, Stick Mom, two or three kids and a stick dog and/or cat. I'm always looking for the ones that show a gerbil, or a rebellious teenager with piercings or mohawk hair.

One day, I was following a lime-green Mazda 2, and saw that he had two decals on the back window: Stick Dad, One Stick cat. Is that not the most pathetic thing ever? I wonder if the cat was named Pete?

This was my first Heinlein and I really loved it! Yes, the future depicted is not very accurate (it is funny to see how most authors who wrote about the year 2000 never managed to predict things like cellphones and the internet). However, I really liked his upbeat view of the future and his ability to shrug off whatever life throws at him. More than that, it seems that lately most books I read tend to have a very pessimistic view of the future and of the human race, and since (despite a lot of evidence to the contrary) I do not share this gloom view, I enjoyed reading a book in which the future seems like a nice place to go, and even if you sometimes get burned for trusting the wrong people, you can still find true friends and true love (and in any case, you can always count on your cat).
Maybe I will just steer clear from post-apocalyptic books in the near future...

Heinlein's definitive time travel story is the short story All You Zombies but this one is also a excellent one. Time loops, self fulfilling events, revenge by living well.

I loved this story. an interesting & well written take on "if I had it to do over again, what would I do"?

Classic Heinlein, with a mostly likeable hero triumphing against the odds using his skills, wits and hard work. Unexpected local colour for me as a Scot, with the references to Edinburgh and Glasgow. The grumpy Glaswegian/Scottish engineer is pretty much the archetype used by Star Trek and it would be nice to think that the attribution of the breakthrough work on gravity to Edinburgh University was a tip of the hat to Higgs and his boson etc but I think the publication date is to early for that ... though it is a time travel novel so perhaps ...

It's a minor part of the story overall, but the 'love story' is just so jarringly wrong that it almost spoils all the rest for me. It probably wouldn't have bothered me back when I was first reading Heinlein as a teenager but it now strikes me as just creepy and wrong. The fact it was obviously acceptable both when the book was written and since - or the book would not be so highly rated - makes the point that the past is a foreign country much more strongly than what now seem charming notions of what the year 2000 would be like ... though the relentless optimism that the future would be a better place is one of the book's (and Heinlein's) most attractive qualities - if not quite totally redeeming.

Showing my limitations I suppose, I would like to ask you what is so creepy and wrong about the 'love story'. Sure, there is no romance and no getting to know the other person, two nearly insurmountable barriers to a later good relationship from my perspective. I saw the biggest role it played was to provide two names in a bridal registry which electrify the main character and set in motion the time travel.

June wrote: "Showing my limitations I suppose, I would like to ask you what is so creepy and wrong about the 'love story'. Sure, there is no romance and no getting to know the other person, two nearly insurmoun..."
She's 12 years old and his 'niece'; that's more than creepy.

But, not when she is unfrozen. Then, she is an adult.

Remember when he works out the scheme for her to have her grandmother pick her up from camp and provide a place for her to grow up? It explains his nervousness when she is unfrozen. Would there be anything between them after all those years?

Celtic wrote: "She's 12 years old and his 'niece'; that's more than creepy. "

No, she's not his niece. She's Miles' step-daughter—he'd married a widow—and Miles was an army buddy, anyway, no relation at all. Then, she was a kid he'd known for "half her life", and "Be­sides, Ricky didn't have phys­i­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions ca­pa­ble of warp­ing a man's judg­ment. Her fem­i­nin­ity was only in her face; it hadn't af­fected her fig­ure yet." So, ‘Ricky had been "my girl" since she was a six-year-old at San­dia, with hair rib­bons and big solemn dark eyes. I was "going to marry her" when she grew up and we would both take care of Pete. I thought it was a game we were play­ing, and per­haps it was, with lit­tle Ricky se­ri­ous only to the ex­tent that it of­fered her even­tual full cus­tody of our cat. But how can you tell what goes on in a child's mind?’

Since when was that sort of thing creepy? I've been on both sides of the relationship. I remember telling my cousin (at least 15 years older than me) that I was going to marry her when I was about 5, and my friend's daughter told me she was going to marry me when she was six or seven. What's the world coming to when that's no longer innocent?

Anyway, he had no part in Ricky's careful calculation to have herself frozen so that they could be of a similar age at some point.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Since when was that sort of thing creepy? I've been on both sides of the relationship ... and my friend's daughter told me she was going to marry me when she was six or seven. What's the world coming to when that's no longer innocent?"

I agree that the child's emotions are innocent; a natural part of growing up. What I have a problem with is predatory adult behaviour and this crosses that line for me.

Sharing our different reactions to what we've read is of course the whole point of book groups and it can be worthwhile to explore what underlies those reactions. We need to be careful though not to overemphasise a single aspect of the book.

Sorry; on re-reading, and for the avoidance of doubt, I want to be absolutely clear that it's the book I'm talking about.

Celtic wrote: "Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Since when was that sort of thing creepy? I've been on both sides of the relationship ... and my friend's daughter told me she was going to marry me when she..."

But, I think this needs to be better explored. I will reread portions of the book. If Celtic is right, I want to know. If not, then the enjoyment of others is impaired and the author is maligned by these accusations.

When Dan first wakes, he's concerned about Ricky, but there's never been anything creepy or predatory. He clearly cares about her more than her step-father does.

"And if some­thing had slipped and she was poor in spite of the stock I had as­signed her, then-by damn, I'd marry her! Yes, I would. It didn't mat­ter that she was ten years or so older than I was; "

It's showing the chauvinism of the times in which it was written, but far from stalking a child he's actually promising to look after a woman he expects to be much older than him. After that, he doesn't have another thought about her that isn't directly connected to the fact that he left her his stock in Hired Girl, and she should have become rich but apparently didn't, until he realizes that she too has used the cold sleep time machine—and, at that point, everything changes.

Oh, of course "he had no part in Ricky's careful calculation to have herself frozen so that they could be of a similar age at some point." is wrong.

The Dan whose story we're reading has no part in her decision, but of course she's actually with a slightly older Dan when he discovers she's taken the cold sleep. And that Dan does what he does because he'd already done it! As he makes perfectly clear, you can't have time paradoxes!

I think there are some definite loose strings of logic in the time travel. He does a good job of obfuscating when trying to explain to Ricky at the end of the book.

I did reread a goodly portion of the book last night. It was enjoyable the second time around.

Before he goes back in time, the night nurse at Riverside pulls out the file on Ricky and shows him a photograph from right after she awakens from cold sleep. "Oh, not the Ricky I had known, for this was not a girl but a mature young woman, twentyish or older, with a grown-up hairdo and a grown-up and very beautiful face. She was smiling."

He tried to find her but "at Yuma, I gave up the chase for Ricky had gotten married. What I saw on the register shocked me so much that I dropped everything and jumped a ship to Denver."

He goes back in time.

After going back in time he goes to the Girl Scout camp."I didn't kiss her; I did not touch her at all. I've never been one to paw children." After a brief description of a child with pixie face, he says, "She was adorable" but in the context of being a cute kid and not a sexual interest.

He continued: "Our original relationship back when she was six had been founded on mutual decent respect for the other's individualism and personal dignity. . . We sat on opposite sides of the picnic table." He assigned the stock certificate to her on her 21st birthday and gives her the instructions for the cold sleep herself. She asks, "If I do . . will you marry me?" Now, that he knows the future, he says "My ears roared and the lights flickered." Then, he says, "Yes, Ricky. That's what I want. That's why I am doing this." He gave her his class ring and told her it was hers and they were engaged.

I suspect this is where some misunderstandings could develop. But, a reader must remember, the main character already knows the future. He knows he is going to marry her.

When he does marry her in Yuma, he signs his full name so that when his earlier self comes looking to see who Ricky married, there will be no doubt in his mind. This strikes me as a paradox. His earlier actions are being determined by his later one.

At the end of the book, Ricky asks him, "Tell me one thing. Are you glad you waited for me to grow up?"

as a person who has not read the book, I have to say that this has been a fascinating discussion.

this actually gives me rather a creepy feeling:

At the end of the book, Ricky asks him, "Tell me one thing. Are you glad you waited for me to grow up?"

not sure why. probably because I didn't 'feel' the context by reading the book.

I think it means are you glad you waited instead of hooking up with someone else. But, I can see how in today's sensibilities it would have been preferable had this been worded differently. Sexual predation on children was just not talked about at the time, which is one of the reasons you know this does not refer to that. No publisher would have gone along with that. I added it to my previous comment to prove she was an adult before they got married.

June wrote: "I think there are some definite loose strings of logic in the time travel. He does a good job of obfuscating when trying to explain to Ricky at the end of the book."

Now, actually, I just re-read that bit and thought I was finally beginning to understand it...

June wrote: "I think it means are you glad you waited instead of hooking up with someone else. But, I can see how in today's sensibilities it would have been preferable had this been worded differently. Sexual ..."

Except, he didn't "wait". He got shanghaied into the future in the first place, took a little time to get settled in there, then as soon as he realized that Ricky had made the cold-sleep trip, too, set about getting back to the past to fix the people who'd cheated him, assure his fortune, and save his cat! As soon as that was done (and he realized he hadn't actually left enough time for it when he'd gone back), he went back into cold-sleep on the originally planned contract (with the one change that he was to be woken six months later than originally planned). All the timing was actually up to Ricky.

June wrote: " This strikes me as a paradox. His earlier actions are being determined by his later one."

No. A paradox occurs when the later actions prevent something that has already happened (e.g., going back in time to kill your grandfather). This is essentially predestination, which is pretty much the opposite. Dan doesn't believe in paradoxes—he believes that he can successfully go back in time because he sees that it has already happened (though at the very end, he acknowledges that he doesn't really know if he's in the same future he saw the first time he arrived in 2000, or if it's an alternate universe).

I just started this last night. I'm sure I must have read it 30 or so years ago (as it is the Heinlein collection of masss market paperbacks on my shelf, which are the ones I've carried with me with each move), but so far it all feels new! I promise not to post on the Ricky issue!

I was trying to sort out the time travel aspects. The notions of free will and predestination are presented. In the conversation with Ricky, the main character seems to be suggesting all the events were happening simultaneously. And, as I said, it really seems to me that later things need to have happened first--uh, out of sequence. So, at the end, is the main character suggesting more of a quantum sense of time?

(And how do you highlight just the wording to which you want to reply?)

when you hit reply to a post, the first couple sentences of that post get italicized (I think that is what you mean by highlight?) in your response post. if you want to highlight sentences that are not the first couple sentences of the original post, you'll have to cut & paste those sentences to replace or add to those first couple italicized sentences that are automatically a part of your response post.

Thank you

I think at the end, Dan is "suggesting more of a quantum sense of time", but only as a possibility. When he went back, he'd not only convinced himself that there was only one timeline, however many times you looped it on itself, but he'd convinced himself that even though the time machine sent one object back and the other one forwards in time, apparently randomly, he would go back (the bit about finding a guinea pig, and then putting two guinea pigs in the machine, one being the older version of the other—the one that goes back has to be the younger one, because anything else is paradox.)

June wrote: "(And how do you highlight just the wording to which you want to reply?) "

I hit reply, delete all the text within the quotes, and copy and paste the bit I want :-) Now that you mention it, I should send GR the code to do it right: select the text you want, then click on "reply", and it should populate the comment box with the right text. [ETA: done at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...]

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote:" I hit reply, delete all the text within the quotes, and copy and paste"

That seems to work. The second method did not work for me.

Well, I don't hold much hope of the second method ever working: I sent them the code, but they're not big on improving the site for users, only for authors.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy Heinlein's time travel stories and how he has no problem having an one character be in the same time with himself. Still do not understand the explanation, but don't care if I ever do!

I don't know if the explanation makes any kind of sense at all. I think he has very carefully crafted it to not quite violate any known science, while relying on a number of tautologies. The best that could be said of it is that it's not (I think) provably wrong. Which, when it comes down to it, is not much different from the best of cutting edge science.

Started late this month and about half-way through.